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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Ever wonder how long it takes to graduate college? Or better yet, what percent of students who start at a particular college end up graduating from there?

Well the Student Achievement Measure
(SAM) tracks student movement across post-secondary institutions to provide
a more complete picture of undergraduate student progress and completion within
the higher education system. Usual measures of student progress and completion, including
government-led efforts, usually underreport student achievement because they do
not account for an increasingly mobile student population.
SAM is an alternative to the federal graduation
rate, which is limited to tracking the completion of first-time, full-time
students at one institution.

Nationally, more than
one in five students who complete a degree do so at an institution other than
the one where they started, according to a recent study by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Yet the typical method for calculating graduation rates, as stipulated by
federal legislation, counts only those students who enroll full-time and then
start and finish at their first college or university. SAM better accounts for
the success of these students.

There are two models
included in SAM, one for students enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs and
one for students enrolled in associate’s degree or certificate programs. The associate's model provide the following for both full time and part time students:

The percent that graduated within 6 years of first enrolling in the initial institution;

The percent that are still enrolled in the initial institution after 6 years;

The percent that have transferred to a different institution;

The percent whose current status is unknown.

The bachelor's model provides slightly more information:

The percent that graduated within 6 years of first enrolling in the initial institution;

The percent that are still enrolled in the initial institution after 6 years;

The percent that have transferred to, and graduated from, a different institution;

The percent that have transferred to, and still enrolled at, a different institution;

The percent whose current status is unknown.

Below is a listing of colleges that participate in the program in New York State. The institutions shaded in green have active files reviewable by visiting the SAM Participants page and selecting New York State and then clicking on the college name (only those with hyperlinks have participated long enough to have useable data).